Articles tagged with: Entrepreneurship

Facebook insiders have been selling their stock. Top level insiders such as directors from venture funds invested in Facebook, key executives and even Mark Zuckerberg himself have been quietly trying to unload some shares in private sales. These private transactions are not uncommon as startup entrepreneurs and their backers are often in search of some liquidity. What makes these particular transactions interesting are the implied values being negotiated.
When Microsoft (MSFT) bought a small stake in the wildly popular social network, the price paid implied an overall value of $15 billion. …

Chris Anderson, a writer at Wired Magazine and author of the influential The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, makes some good points about the insanity of Facebook’s $15 billion valuation, the inadequacy of current approaches to social networking, and the implications of an over-reliance on advertising as a business model. His arguments are useful because entrepreneurs can use them to make concrete business or strategic decisions. He doesn’t use namby pamby qualifications to hedge his bets and predictions. I do …

In highly entrepreneurial hot spots like Silicon Valley, San Francisco where I grew up, Route 128, Washington DC, Seattle, Los Angeles where an impressive raft of social networking and new media startups has sprouted, and biotechnology-focused San Diego, critical mass of entrepreneurial activity organically attracts venture capital. In other words, a rich “ecosystem” – where entrepreneurs can assemble readily available capital, talent, and relationships – can only come about when entrepreneurs first satisfy the initial criterion of creating innovation and value to a significant degree. In emerging hot spots such …

Venture capital follows the public equity markets. So it is no coincidence that many VCs think that funding activity will slow down in the foreseeable future. KPMG, the large accounting firm, surveyed venture capitalists and found that 69% of respondents think that we are currently in a recession. A whopping 90% believe we will see a drop in initial public offerings. All in all, this will result in less money raised in venture capital partnerships and thus less money available for startups. Startup funds will find …

Prompted by the rumblings of activist hedge funds Harbinger Capital and Firebrand Partners last month, I wrote about the New York Times (NYT) and its evolving technology assets. I found the Times to be surprisingly forward-thinking in its investments in the online world. As a strategic investor, it has made some fairly impressive investments in innovative startups that could solve the riddle of monetizing online news and content. Its investments include bets on blog advertising networks, news aggregation websites, blogging platforms, video sharing sites, job search engines, …

I co-founded a tiny little agency a few months ago called SocialOptimize that was focused on producing Facebook apps. At the time of founding, my partner and I received almost overwhelming demand from companies who were desperate to gain a presence on social networking site Facebook. Facebook was already quickly turning into a cultural phenomenon as everyone and their grandmother started registering for the site and “poking” each other.
Essentially, it was this mass of humanity in digital form that attracted advertisers and marketers to jump on the bandwagon and either …

Social networking has thus far been primarily about connecting with lost friends, playing simple games, and gawking at strangers. Aside from the amazing ability to reconnect with buddies from middle school, the rest of social networking mirrors normal human behavior in real life. Lots of people need an avenue for rest and relaxation. Dumb games like Pirates vs. Ninjas on Facebook replaces old time-wasters like watching TV. Who hasn’t been to the mall or the park watching people pass by? We’re all voyeurs to some degree but social networks like …

The other day, a team of entrepreneurs came to pitch their high-tech startup for funding. This motivated group of guys wanted to raise around $10 million for their new, super duper, unique, revolutionary, paradigm-shifting, outside the box, knock your socks off, we’re all gonna retire young, give me your money now technology. After the customary small talk and by the time they were about to start their presentation, I almost wanted to hand the “CEO” the shirt off my back.
Why is it that someone will always show up to an …

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington has a very informative piece on the credit crisis and its effect on startups. Apparently, many startups are putting their venture cash in Auction Rate Securities, financial instruments that are normally very liquid and provide better yields than typical bank savings/checkings accounts. Unfortunately, the perfect storm of the current credit crisis has put a freeze on the ARS market and startups are finding a difficult time to access their cash.
What really surprised me from the article was that many startups were putting their cash in …

Jesse Stay, my partner in SocialOptimize, just made the big time in terms of exposure. The New York Times (NYT) just referenced the book he co-authored with Jason Alba, I’m on Facebook – Now What?, in one of its career-oriented articles. Jesse’s success as an author of this timely book and a very well-written blog about social networking technology has paid dividends for our business. We have performed no advertising since founding the new media branding and development agency a few months ago, yet we get several …